Towards a strategy for rehabilitation and development of irrigation systems in the Batticaloa district, Sri Lanka : a concept paper

Abstract

Agriculture and fisheries are the mainstay of the rural household economies of Batticaloa district. Agriculture in the district is synonymous with rice cultivation as the latter remains the most important agricultural activity for the vast majority of its farm households. However, a wide range of subsidiary food crops and tree crops like coconut and cashew are also cultivated in the highlands. While the availability of a variety of soils offers opportunities for such a diversified agricultural land use, the scarcity of water at critical times in the cropping cycles has remained a major constraint to the districts economic and social advancement. Yet Batticaloas water resources in terms of total annua! precipitation and other natura! sources are not meagre by any standard. The water problem is caused primarily by the uneven distribution of rainfall and the inadequacies in conservation and management. Only 34 percent of the rainwater in an average year can be conserved in the existing irrigation tanks when they are fully functioning. However, until the mid 1980s these large and small irrigation schemes, which supplied water for 37.5 percent of the 57, 120 ha of paddy cultivated in the district, played a major role in making Batticaloa a surplus producer of paddy. With the advent of the civil war around 1985, the districts economy, largely dependent on agriculture and fisheries, came under growing stress leading to negative growth rates in several years. The irrigation infrastructure has been subject to damage and degeneration due to the effects of the war. Today, a majority of the minor irrigation schemes and many irrigation and drainage structures of the major schemes are in a bad state of disrepair. Moreover, the socio-economic dislocations caused by the war have seriously undermined local level institutions concerned with land water resources management and rural development.